As I'm sure everyone has noticed, I rarely get a chance to see the episode before the weekend. I'm usually too busy to watch it during the week.
First off... where the heck are Jin and Sun? This is the third episode they haven't been discernably in. Especially since they're two of the most ambiguous people as to which side they'd take. I wonder if they just said, "Screw this, y'all are whack," and made their own way... which would be interesting. I haven't even seen them in the background anywhere. It's odd.
Hurley gets all the best lines - "Oh great, the boat sent us another Sawyer." Priceless. I called it last week, and I'm keeping at it - Hurley and Locke will end up fighting over Team Locke. Especially since the cabin/Jacob showed itself to Hurley and wouldn't to Locke.
Jack - well done. You now have zero trackers on your team. The scene with him and the pilot was great though - "Was he a diplomat? No." That said...
Kate is totally a spy for Team Jack. First, it ties in nicely with Sayid being an assassin (Yay for A and B stories having a link!). More importantly, the whole exchange with Jack and Kate completely set it up. "I don't trust Locke," was basically Jack telling her to spy, and "Sawyer won't let that happen," was him telling her how to get in. Of course, Sawyer made a good case for her to stay...
I'm not a huge shipper, but Sawyer/Kate rocks. Especially Sawyer... great acting by the actor in that scene. Great directing too. It was just right.
The continuing abuse of Ben amuses me to no end. "I'm thirsty." Of course, Ben should always have the last line in every episode, because he's just awesome like that. "Good." Creepy.
Locke is full of crap. I said it before, I'll say it again... all the smart people stayed with Jack. There's been a lot of analysis of the show as faith versus science... I think it's more faith versus cynicism myself. Which is interesting that the more religious people on the show (Rose, Sayid) stayed with what I would consider the cynical side. I love Rose.
Which brings me to Sayid. Sayid is a badass. There is no other word to describe him. He's the ultimate pragmatist. Which makes Ben's comment at the end more interesting - Sayid going with his heart over his brains twice. I'm guessing that the first time was related to the O6 getting off the island. We've now seen three of the O6 completely messed up by getting off the island... but Sayid is the only one I think we've seen why.
One other point - the O6. Knowing Ben is off the island, I think we can assume anyone not on the manifest may have gotten off, but not gotten a settlement. This includes Juliet, Desmond, and I'm guessing Aaron.